Let’s talk about externalizing executive function.

I mean, everybody’s doing it…

Image created by Dall-E with the prompt: “a square illustration of an ADHD professional externalizing executive function” because I’m meta like that.

I’ve been thinking a whole lot about the concept and practice of “externalizing executive function.” It’s one of the many things shared by people both with and without #ADHD , but with disproportionate consequences. Both may have planners, for example, but if it gets lost, the difficulty with things like working memory, time blindness, and emotional regulation makes the ADHD professional’s day much more stressful.

Well, I think it does, anyway. Turns out I’ve never been a professional without ADHD, so I really can’t say from experience. But that’s the theory, anyway. I keep picturing the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland — that kind of agitation, rushing, and constant checking of the clock is what it feels like.

But I also realized that in any hierarchical organization, your place in the hierarchy is basically gauged by two things:

1. How many of your own executive functions are being offloaded onto other people, so that you can specialize in one, and…

2. …what executive function YOU are providing for someone else so that THEY can focus on something else.

As a side note, I think the only difference between hierarchal and non-heirarchic organizations is that the former thinks first of the executive function, and then sticks people into it until somebody fits, whereas non-hierarchical orgs start by asking what a person is good at and wants to do, and then builds the organizations systems around them.

And the big changes in technology during the Information Age is that there are more tools available to more people to externalization executive function. Beyond clocks, we have AI schedulers that can not only schedule your day but re-arrange it when the plan goes awry (as it always does).

Basically, that means everybody has a secretary - including actual secretaries. Virtual assistants are able to do what they do because they are better at using those tools than their clients — and that frees up the client to not have to learn how to use whatever new shiny app is taking things by storm.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this — I’ll be writing, talking, and even doing some video about all this in the next few days, and I’ll post links to them here - but if you want to get them direct, I’ll be posting all the content here, of course, so if you’re reading this on Substack, you’ll know!